Another assumption is that local autonomy that empowers ethnic groups would be inappropriate for an ethnically diverse country like Nepal, as the rhetorical musings of your report make clear. I think the problem with this assumption lies in its palpable absurdity, which is so obvious that people inhabiting the corridors of power and ivory towers easily miss them.

Yet another assumption that is not so obvious equates unquestioning the acceptance of the hegemony of a certain racial grouping with racial harmony and national integration. Ditto with religion. If the ethnic groups question the state religion and assert their right to practice their own faiths, their activities are condemned as subversive and detrimental to our country’s fabled ethos of religious tolerance.

The subtext of your report is betrayed by its sly attempt to attach guilt to the ethnic movement by association, as made obvious by the reporter’s claim that the "growing ethnic assertiveness has found an extra impetus in the bolstering Maoist movement". This claim conveniently ignores the cynicism displayed by the Maoists in trying to enlist ethnic support by advocating the ethnic cause.